Poverty, Drought and Felled Trees Imperil Malawi Water Supply

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Villagers often use wood to bake clay bricks in the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve near Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, which is experiencing serious water and power shortages. The depletion of the forest has heightened worries.CreditJoao Silva/The New York Times

DZALANYAMA FOREST RESERVE, Malawi — Out of desperation, soldiers were dispatched to the national forest here last year to defend the capital, Lilongwe, less than 30 miles away. Their mission was not to save it from an invading force, but to keep water flowing to its taps.

For years, wood charcoal burners had been destroying this forest, the catchment basin for the Lilongwe River, the source of the capital’s water. Fewer trees mean the ground is less able to absorb water in the rainy season and gradually surrender it the rest of the year. With the supply reaching the capital dwindling and increasingly turbid, and with the El Niño drought spreading across Malawi and the rest of southern Africa, the capital was under imminent threat.

“We’ve always known we’d have the problems we’re facing now,” said Alfonso Chikuni, the chief executive of the state-owned Lilongwe Water Board. After the board agreed to bear the cost of the deployment, the army ordered a company of soldiers to the Dzalanyama Forest in February 2015 to save the trees.

The order came too late.

Two months ago, with the water supply increasingly squeezed by the drought and rebellion in the forest, Mr. Chikuni started rationing in the capital, leaving customers bereft for half the week.

The measure was a fresh blow to Lilongwe, which was already besieged by crippling power blackouts. The same combination of drought and deforestation elsewhere had undermined the nation’s already strained production of hydroelectricity. Now, the capital finds itself dry or in the dark, or both, on any given day.

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Men pushed bicycles stacked with firewood out of the forest. Water shortages and power blackouts have heightened the demand for ever more trees from the forest.CreditJoao Silva/The New York Times

Few places on the continent have been hit as hard by human-led environmental degradation and climate change as Malawi, a poor though politically stable nation in southeastern Africa. The effects of climate change, including shorter rainy seasons and the worst drought in decades, have pushed people into cities looking for jobs or into activities like charcoal burning. These changes have caused water shortages and power blackouts that have merely heightened the demand for ever more trees from the forest.

Nearly all of the charcoal produced in Malawi is illegal. But it continues to be sold openly in the capital — some of it smuggled out of the Dzalanyama Forest despite the military’s presence.

“We’re in a vicious cycle,” said Clement Chilima, the government’s director of forestry. “Even myself, in my house, I have one or two bags of charcoal because you need it during the blackouts. That’s me. What about somebody who is not conscious of the dangers of charcoal?”

Charcoal burners have led to the cutting down of trees in the national forest for years. But the scale of destruction has accelerated in the past three to five years because of the combination of drought, poverty and a growing population, Mr. Chilima said. Despite the military’s presence in this forest and at least another, individuals and organized groups have continued to cut down trees to produce charcoal.

From Madagascar to Zambia, El Niño has exposed the weaknesses of African governments in responding to the long-term effects of climate change. Officials tolerate — and sometimes encourage — activities like charcoal burning that have become integral to Africa’s informal economy but also contribute to its deforestation, which is twice the world’s average, according to the United Nations Environment Program.

When governments do respond, the unintended consequences can be grave.

In the forest here, the military crackdown on charcoal has been especially hard on the poorest, among both producers and consumers, critics say. People suspected of charcoal burning have been beaten by soldiers, leading to many deaths, according to local politicians and the news media.

Harold Chinkhondo, a member of the National Assembly’s committee on natural resources and climate change, said beatings by soldiers had caused the deaths of more than 10 people in his constituency, Dedza West, which borders the forest. Despite promises of an investigation early this year, the military has refused to release any information, he said.

“We’re kept in the dark,” Mr. Chinkhondo said.

Capt. Paul Chiphwanya, a spokesman for the army, said that the investigation was proceeding, but that he could not say when it would be completed.

Malawi is one of the poorest and most aid-dependent countries in Africa, a fact readily apparent upon landing at the capital’s sleepy airport — a tiny facility even by regional standards. Planes are filled with Western missionaries, aid workers and officials with international organizations.

Like other parts of the continent, Malawi has a fast-growing population and rapid urbanization. These are spurring demand for wood charcoal and firewood, which are used for cooking and heating in the cities. On a recent morning, a stream of villagers on bicycles could be seen carrying firewood from Dzalanyama Forest to the capital.

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A charcoal vendor at a market in Lilongwe.CreditJoao Silva/The New York Times

Josam Sandifolo, 25, said he went to sell firewood in the capital three times a week. He paid wood cutters about $5 for his cargo and sold it to a retailer in the capital for about $8.

“I used to trade maize,” he said, “but changed to firewood because of the drought.”

The firewood on his bicycle was a typical mix of dead branches collected from the forest floor and wood that had clearly been cut recently. The freshly cut wood represented a breach of the country’s forestry laws.

But for now, the authorities are focusing on the bigger problem of wood charcoal, which is produced by burning freshly felled wood without oxygen in dirt kilns.

In the area near where soldiers were now stationed, fields cleared of trees and dotted with the remains of kilns lay deserted next to the surviving forest.

But there were 97 soldiers to guard the Dzalanyama Forest — 245,000 acres, nearly 17 times the size of Manhattan — and it was clear that the charcoal burners had just moved to other production sites. Telltale white smoke from active kilns could be seen rising from many distant spots in the mountainous forest.

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A soldier with the Malawi Defense Force walked past charcoal in his base camp in the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve near Lilongwe.CreditJoao Silva/The New York Times

In an interview at the military camp here, Captain Chiphwanya, the army spokesman, said soldiers had confiscated a number of trucks used to transport charcoal to the capital. While the woodcutters were locals, the transportation was organized by “rich people from town sending trucks to buy charcoal from the locals,” he said.

At night, some trucks were still engaging in the illicit trade, he said.

Experts said the charcoal trade was difficult to rein in because politicians were also involved in the business.

“It’s not something that we are hiding,” said Werani Chilenga, the chairman of the National Assembly’s committee on natural resources and climate change. “Politicians are at the forefront.”

Mr. Chilenga, who worked as a government meteorological engineer for three decades before entering politics, said the military’s deployment was not a long-term solution to the charcoal problem and its effects on the country’s water and power supplies.

“We know what needs to be done: Government has to come up with good policies on population control, alternative energy and agriculture,” he said.

As the capital entered its third month of water rationing, soldiers were still guarding the forest. But for how much longer?

With revenues down at the Lilongwe Water Board, its chief executive, Mr. Chikuni, said he was now uncertain how much longer he could keep paying $11,500 a month for the troop deployment.

“The moment they are withdrawn,” he said, “I think the forest will be wiped out.”